The Sisterhood of the Rose
by VeilAbrya
Summary: A mysterious young woman relates her encounter with Severus Snape to a terrified young couple.


Disclaimer: Severus Snape is the property of JK Rowling, and I'm in her debt for creating such a wonderful, inspiring character. May he find a long life within the pages of her books.  
  
  
  
Love's sweet embrace wrapped  
  
its languid hands around  
  
the splendor of  
  
joyous matrimony.  
  
The young couple kissed, passion in  
  
their gentle touch. Forever, to be one.  
  
Their lips parted, their smiles  
  
a proclamation to the world of their  
  
mutual devotion. Together they took  
  
their first steps into their future,  
  
their new life, and their  
  
simple destiny.  
  
The young bride, her feet bare,  
  
her dress golden and the flowers of the season  
  
woven into her hair, threw petals to the crowd  
  
but stopped --  
  
her smile frozen into a look of  
  
unspeakable horror.  
  
Death stepped forth in the guise  
  
of a woman, wrapped in a veil of  
  
midnight black.  
  
Her eyes glowed like the sunken pools  
  
of decaying dreams spun only in nightmares  
  
and woven with the delicate strands of human misery.  
  
"I offer you my blessings for your happiness  
  
on this glorious day," the guest said, her voice  
  
devoid of emotion, of joy. In her pale hand,  
  
she extended a flower,  
  
a white rose,  
  
a gift that was not freely taken.  
  
"I feel your fear," said the guest, "but I beg you to  
  
hear me,  
  
to listen to the story of my sin,  
  
my mistake, my eternal damnation.  
  
"Then," her eyes cut to the bride,  
  
"make your choice.  
  
"I was like you, once. And how  
  
I longed  
  
to be something beyond the excuse  
  
that was my mediocre existence.  
  
I sought escape, adventure, love.  
  
My own mundane  
  
world offered me  
  
nothing.  
  
Dusk's dying embers brought him  
  
to me, in a swirl of mystery  
  
and darkness. At first glance I knew --  
  
here was one who could make heaven  
  
his dungeon and hell  
  
his playground.  
  
In his eyes I saw burning  
  
embers of torturous solitude  
  
and velvet, wanton desire.  
  
In his face, I saw beauty in the  
  
tormented, dignity in  
  
the despised.  
  
Others stepped back and turned  
  
from him  
  
when he approached.  
  
"Leave him be, that one," they said.  
  
"He cares for no one, knows not love.  
  
His past is darkened.  
  
With him, you'll suffer."  
  
But I could not turn away.  
  
In bold ambition, I went to him.  
  
But his look was cold and rejection  
  
was left in my hands. With arrogant disregard,  
  
I went to him again. His response was soaked  
  
in venom.  
  
"Go. I will not have you."  
  
In quiet humility and  
  
blatant desperation, I came to him  
  
once more, but this time as  
  
sacrifice of new beginnings and  
  
fresh temptations.  
  
His response was wrapped  
  
in curiosity, his lips into a snear.  
  
"An offering? Of yourself?"  
  
He took me to his most hidden  
  
of places.  
  
It was the chamber of his  
  
toil, his work,  
  
his despair.  
  
My hand in his I entered his  
  
world, knowing I could never  
  
return the same.  
  
His robes glided like silk  
  
across the floor  
  
as he lead me to my fate.  
  
And with the Harvest Moon  
  
as our witness, he gave himself  
  
to me in one forbidden kiss.  
  
I was born, I lived,  
  
I died.  
  
The sum of my existence spent  
  
In the moments that followed.  
  
I was broken to be re-born  
  
as a servant of this man, this  
  
wizard, this  
  
Slytherin.  
  
Cradling me in his arms  
  
like a mother nursing  
  
her newborn,  
  
he lowered me to the cold floor.  
  
"Non omnius moriar," he whispered, leaving me  
  
living in body, but dead --and enslaved -- in spirit."  
  
The couple stood in stunned, muted shame.  
  
The guest, now silent, once again raised her flower,  
  
an offering, of herself.  
  
The sweet aroma and delicate petals  
  
the color of purity and innocence  
  
were too enticing to the bride. She  
  
took it.  
  
"Come away, she is mad,"  
  
said the young groom as  
  
he grasped the arm  
  
of his mate.  
  
But the innocence in her  
  
was dying already.  
  
They turned to walk to their future as husband  
  
and wife, yet he failed to see  
  
the withering flowers in her hair,  
  
the decaying leaves floating  
  
gently to her shoulders.  
  
The rose she still clutched,  
  
white no longer but darkened, with the frost  
  
that is death.  
  
Her hand then opened to  
  
release not a flower but  
  
a serpent that slid quickly  
  
to the Earth below.  
  
The bride turned back, her eyes  
  
no longer tender and sweet, but  
  
smoldering with a deadly  
  
new desire.  
  
She mouthed the words the two women knew –  
  
"I am yours as well, Severus."  
  
One more for the cause, and  
  
Yet another soul, claimed. 


End file.
